Azure Migration Strategy - Architecture Insights

What Is Cloud Migration on Azure

Cloud migration to Azure involves moving applications, data, and infrastructure from on-premises, other clouds, or legacy systems to Azure. The Microsoft Cloud Adoption Framework (CAF) provides a methodology that goes beyond technical rehosting. CAF emphasizes aligning migration with business strategy, building organizational capability, managing cost discipline, and establishing governance before and after migration.

What Problems Migration Strategy Solves

Without intentional migration strategy:

Unplanned migration costs spiral as workloads move inefficiently to the cloud
Teams lack shared understanding of what success looks like
Security, compliance, and governance gaps emerge mid-migration
Skills gaps prevent teams from operationalizing cloud infrastructure
Individual teams make migration decisions in isolation, creating duplicate infrastructure and inconsistent governance
Business value from cloud remains unclear

With a deliberate migration strategy:

Upfront business case development clarifies ROI and aligns stakeholders
Phased assessment discovers workload characteristics (dependencies, licensing, rehosting candidates)
Structured readiness ensures landing zones, governance policies, and operational processes are prepared
Cost management frameworks prevent runaway cloud spend
Knowledge and skill development builds lasting organizational capability
Governance and compliance are designed before migration, not retrofitted after

How Azure Migration Differs from AWS Migration

Both AWS and Azure provide cloud migration frameworks, but their approaches differ in structure and emphasis:

Aspect	AWS	Azure
Migration framework	AWS Migration Accelerator Program (MAP) focuses on technical execution and cost optimization	Cloud Adoption Framework emphasizes business alignment, skills development, and governance as equally important as technical migration
Landing zones	AWS Control Tower automates account and baseline setup	Azure Landing Zones provide opinionated architecture with role-based access control and policy enforcement from day one
Cost management	AWS Cost Explorer and Trusted Advisor for cost visibility. Cost discipline requires organizational effort	Azure provides Cost Management + Billing with governance policies that enforce spending guardrails by default
Skills development	AWS Training and Certification marketplace. Skills development is customer’s responsibility	Microsoft Learn provides free, comprehensive training. CAF emphasizes building teams with designated cloud architect and business analyst roles
Governance approach	Distributed responsibility. Teams implement security and compliance independently	Centralized by design. Azure Policy enforces compliance standards across all subscriptions
On-premises integration	AWS Outposts bring AWS infrastructure on-premises. Less integrated with existing data center operations	Azure Arc extends Azure management and governance to on-premises and multi-cloud resources

The Cloud Adoption Framework Methodology

The Microsoft Cloud Adoption Framework organizes migration into six sequential phases, each producing specific deliverables and outcomes.

The Six CAF Phases

The CAF phases progress from strategic planning through ongoing operations:

Define Strategy aligns business outcomes and financial justification
Plan assesses workloads, builds skills roadmap, and creates migration inventory
Ready prepares Azure landing zones, governance policies, and operational readiness
Migrate executes workload migration in waves using standardized patterns
Innovate modernizes applications to extract additional cloud value
Govern & Manage operates cloud infrastructure with compliance, cost control, and security

These phases are not strictly waterfall. Organizations often conduct multiple phases in parallel for different workload cohorts. Some teams may skip Innovate if business priorities focus on cost reduction through rehosting.

Phase 1: Define Strategy

Purpose: Establish business outcomes, financial justification, and organizational alignment before any technical work begins.

Strategic Outcome Definition

Begin with clear business outcomes that migration will deliver. These outcomes drive all downstream decisions about workload prioritization, technology choices, and post-migration optimization.

Common cloud migration outcomes:

Outcome	Example Business Goal
Cost reduction	Reduce infrastructure spend by 30% through pay-as-you-go pricing and elimination of owned data center capacity
Business agility	Reduce time-to-market for new features from 6 months to 3 months by scaling development infrastructure on-demand
Operational efficiency	Reduce on-premises infrastructure team headcount by 50% by shifting management overhead to Azure managed services
Risk reduction	Achieve compliance with industry regulations (SOC 2, HIPAA, PCI-DSS) through Azure built-in compliance controls
Performance & innovation	Access advanced analytics, machine learning, and geographically distributed infrastructure for new capabilities

Defining outcomes effectively:

Quantify the outcome - “Reduce cost by 30%” is more actionable than “save money”
Identify the business stakeholder - Outcomes must connect to P&L responsibility or strategic initiative
Set a timeline - When should the outcome be realized? By what milestone?
Establish the baseline - What is the current state? How will you measure improvement?

Building a Business Case

A business case quantifies migration ROI and justifies investment in migration execution, skills development, and post-migration optimization.

Business case components:

Component	Purpose
Current state costs	Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) for on-premises infrastructure: hardware, software licenses, facilities, people, maintenance
Cloud state costs	Projected costs in Azure: compute, storage, networking, licenses, managed services
Migration costs	One-time costs: migration tools, professional services, training, cutover downtime
Productivity gains	Reduction in operational effort (hours saved x loaded cost), time-to-market acceleration (revenue impact)
Risk reduction	Financial impact of compliance (cost to remediate vs. cost to comply), disaster recovery capability
Break-even timeline	When cumulative savings exceed migration and cloud costs

Example business case structure:

Current on-premises infrastructure costs (servers, licenses, facilities, people, maintenance)
Projected Azure costs after rehosting without optimization
One-time migration costs (tools, services, training)
Annual productivity gains from reduced operational overhead
Timeline to break-even (when cumulative savings exceed migration costs)

Organizational Alignment

Define clear executive sponsorship and team responsibilities.

Role	Responsibility
Executive sponsor	Owns business outcomes and authorizes budget; resolves cross-functional conflicts
Cloud strategy leader	Develops business case, defines outcomes, drives organizational change management
Cloud architect	Owns technical vision and landing zone design; ensures architecture aligns with business outcomes
Workload owner	Provides business requirements and success criteria for each workload; decides rehost vs. modernize
Operations leader	Plans operational readiness and post-migration support model

Phase 2: Plan

Purpose: Assess current workloads, identify which workloads are migration candidates, and build a detailed migration inventory.

Workload Assessment

Assessment answers the fundamental question: “What are we moving and how do we move it?” Tools like Azure Migrate automate discovery and dependency mapping of on-premises applications.

Assessment process:

Deploy Azure Migrate discovery appliance in on-premises data center
Scan for running applications, dependencies, resource utilization, and network connections
Analyze each workload against cloud readiness criteria
Categorize workloads by migration path and complexity

Azure Migrate assessment capabilities:

Dependency mapping - Visualizes which applications and databases are connected
Performance profiling - Collects CPU, memory, disk, and network metrics over time
Application inventory - Lists installed software, licenses, and version information
Cost estimation - Projects Azure compute and storage costs
Readiness assessment - Identifies compatibility issues or licensing concerns

The 5 Rs of Migration

Not all workloads migrate the same way. The “5 Rs” classify workloads by migration approach:

R	Pattern	Use Case	Effort	Risk
Rehost	Move VM as-is to Azure (lift and shift) with minimal changes	Legacy apps, deadline pressure, standardized on VMs	Low	Low
Refactor	Modernize application code while retaining core architecture	Apps needing cloud optimizations (caching, autoscaling, logging)	Medium	Medium
Rearchitect	Redesign application for cloud-native patterns (microservices, containers)	Business-critical apps requiring scalability, resilience, or modernization	High	High
Rebuild	Rewrite application from scratch using cloud-native services	Apps where cloud-native approach delivers significant competitive advantage	Very high	Very high
Replace	Switch to SaaS instead of self-hosted or custom code	ERP, CRM, HR systems where SaaS meets requirements and reduces ownership burden	Medium	Low

Matching workloads to Rs:

Start with rehosting for 70-80% of workloads (quick wins, fast migration)
Refactor applications where rehosting creates unsustainable cloud costs (e.g., database licensing)
Rearchitect business-critical applications that benefit from cloud-native patterns
Replace legacy systems that SaaS solutions can cover without custom development
Rebuild only for strategic competitive advantage; rebuild is expensive and time-consuming

Migration Prioritization

Not all workloads migrate simultaneously. Prioritization determines the sequence and migration waves.

Prioritization criteria:

Criterion	Example Questions
Business value	Does migrating this workload unblock strategic initiatives? Will it reduce operational costs?
Technical dependencies	Does this workload depend on others? Should it migrate first or last?
Licensing impact	Will cloud pricing dramatically reduce licensing costs? (e.g., SQL Server moving to Azure SQL with Azure Hybrid Benefit)
Operational maturity	Does the team running this workload have cloud skills, or will it require training?
Data residency	Does the workload have data residency constraints that limit where it can migrate?
Complexity	Are there integration points, custom code, or infrastructure that make migration challenging?

Example prioritization decision: Migrate web-facing applications first (quick wins, visible business value), then middleware and backends (dependencies are understood), finally legacy systems (complex, low business urgency).

Skills Roadmap

Migration success depends on teams understanding cloud operational models. Identify skills gaps and build a learning plan.

Common skills gaps in cloud migration:

Infrastructure-as-code (IaC) and policy-as-code for governance
Containerization and container orchestration (Docker, Kubernetes)
Cloud cost management and optimization
Cloud-native security patterns (least privilege access, zero trust)
Monitoring and observability in cloud environments

Building skills:

Microsoft Learn provides free, hands-on training for Azure services
Role-based learning paths (for administrators, architects, developers)
Certifications validate skills (Azure Administrator, Solutions Architect Expert)
Designate cloud champions in each team to share knowledge

Phase 3: Ready

Purpose: Prepare Azure environment, governance policies, and operational readiness before migration begins.

Landing Zone Design

A landing zone is a pre-configured Azure environment that provides security boundaries, governance policies, network isolation, and operational baseline. Landing zones eliminate the need for teams to build foundational infrastructure from scratch.

Azure Landing Zones provide:

Subscription strategy - Organizing structure (e.g., by workload, environment, cost center)
Network topology - Hub-and-spoke VNets with centralized firewall and gateway
Identity and access control - Role-based access (RBAC) and Entra ID integration
Governance policies - Azure Policy enforcing naming standards, allowed resource types, compliance controls
Cost management - Budgets, alerts, and charge-back models
Monitoring and logging - Log Analytics, diagnostic settings, and centralized log collection

Governance Policies

Before workloads migrate, establish governance policies that enforce security, compliance, and cost discipline.

Critical governance policies:

Policy	Purpose	Example
Resource naming	Standardize naming for easy identification and automation	All production VMs must follow: `prod-{region}-{app-name}-{instance}`
Allowed resources	Restrict resource types to approved services and SKUs	Only allow Standard and Premium VM SKUs; deny Basic tier
Tagging enforcement	Require consistent tagging for cost allocation and resource management	All resources must have tags: Environment, Owner, CostCenter
Network isolation	Enforce network segmentation and security controls	All subnets must have NSGs; public IPs only on approved resources
Encryption	Require encryption for data at rest and in transit	All storage accounts must use Azure-managed encryption; TLS 1.2 minimum for networking
Backup and disaster recovery	Enforce backup policies and retention	All databases must have daily backups with 30-day retention

Implementing policies:

Use Azure Policy to enforce standards automatically
Create policy definitions for your organization’s standards
Assign policies at the management group or subscription level for broad enforcement
Monitor non-compliance and remediate through manual intervention or automated remediation

Operational Readiness

Define how the migrated environment will be operated after migration completes.

Operational readiness checklist:

Monitoring and alerting - What metrics matter? What thresholds trigger alerts? Who responds?
Incident response - What is the escalation path? Who owns incident triage?
Change management - How are updates and configuration changes approved and deployed?
Cost optimization - Who reviews cloud spend monthly? What triggers cost reduction investigations?
Security operations - How are security alerts investigated? What is the response SLA for threats?
Backup and disaster recovery - Have RTO/RPO targets been defined? Have recovery procedures been tested?

Phase 4: Migrate

Purpose: Execute the planned workload migration in waves using standardized patterns and Azure Migrate tooling.

Migration Waves and Sequencing

Organizing migration into waves reduces risk and allows lessons learned from early migrations to improve later ones.

Wave structure:

Wave	Characteristics	Example Workloads
Wave 0 (Proof of Concept)	1-2 non-critical workloads; test tools, processes, and team capability	Development environment, test application
Wave 1 (Early adopters)	5-10 workloads with quick wins. Minimal dependencies. Builds momentum	Web servers, stateless applications, simple databases
Wave 2 (Main migration)	Largest number of workloads. Benefits from templates and knowledge from Wave 1	Workloads with some dependencies. Moderate complexity
Wave 3 (Late migration)	Complex, business-critical workloads; heaviest Azure Migrate automation use	Mission-critical databases, integrated systems

Benefits of wave approach:

Early waves prove tooling and processes before main migration
Knowledge from early waves accelerates later waves
Risk is distributed; failure of one workload does not delay others
Operational team has time to onboard and build confidence

Migration Patterns

Different workload types follow distinct migration patterns.

Pattern 1: Simple virtual machines (Rehost)

Most straightforward migration: Azure Migrate replicates VMs from on-premises to Azure.

Pre-migration: Create landing zone subscriptions and network infrastructure
Assessment: Use Azure Migrate to profile VM resources (CPU, memory, disk, network)
Replication: Begin continuous replication of VM disks to Azure storage
Testing: Failover to test environment to validate application behavior in Azure
Cutover: Final failover to production; shut down on-premises VM

Pattern 2: Databases (Refactor)

Database migrations often combine rehosting with optimization for cloud.

Assessment: Evaluate licensing, compatibility, and performance requirements
Choose target service: Azure SQL Database (managed), SQL Managed Instance (feature parity), SQL on VM (control), or PostgreSQL/MySQL/MariaDB for open source
Migration approach: Database Migration Service for online migration with minimal downtime, or backup/restore for simpler migrations
Post-migration: Enable automatic backups, geo-replication, and monitoring

Pattern 3: Applications (Refactor/Rearchitect)

Applications often benefit from refactoring to use managed services and cloud-native patterns.

Rehost to VMs initially (fast, low risk)
Plan refactoring: Move from self-managed databases to managed services; replace custom caching with Azure Cache
Iterate: Each sprint removes more on-premises dependencies and adds cloud-native services
Optimize: Eventually application is distributed across Azure services rather than concentrated in VMs

Azure Migrate Tooling

Azure Migrate provides integrated tooling for discovery, assessment, and migration.

Key Azure Migrate capabilities:

Server Assessment - Profiles on-premises VMs and recommends Azure VM types and sizing
Server Migration - Replicates VMs from on-premises to Azure using agentless or agent-based replication
Database Assessment - Evaluates databases for cloud migration and identifies compatibility issues
Database Migration Service - Migrates databases with minimal downtime and online validation
Web App Migration Assistant - Assesses web applications and guides refactoring for App Service
Data Box - Ships physical storage to Azure for large data transfers (TBs) when network bandwidth is limited

Phase 5: Innovate

Purpose: Modernize applications to extract additional cloud value beyond cost savings from rehosting.

Post-Migration Modernization

After rehosting, applications can be modernized incrementally to achieve cloud-native characteristics.

Modernization patterns:

Pattern	Before	After
Managed databases	SQL Server on VM	Azure SQL Database (managed, patched by Azure)
Containerization	VMs with application	Docker containers orchestrated by AKS or Container Instances
Serverless compute	Always-on application VMs	Azure Functions triggered by events; pay only for execution time
Messaging	Polling database	Azure Service Bus or Event Grid for event-driven architecture
Caching	Queries hit database every time	Azure Cache for Redis reduces database load and latency
Content delivery	Files served from single region	Azure CDN distributes content globally
Analytics	Ad-hoc SQL queries	Azure Synapse Analytics for data warehouse; Power BI for business intelligence

Deciding what to modernize:

Assess business impact - Does modernizing this component deliver revenue or significantly reduce cost?
Evaluate technical complexity - Can the team implement and maintain the modernization?
Consider organizational readiness - Does the team have skills with the new technology?

Continuous Optimization

Cloud environments require ongoing optimization as workload patterns change and new services become available.

Optimization practices:

Right-sizing - Regularly review resource utilization and downsize over-provisioned VMs
Cost management - Monitor spend, investigate anomalies, identify unused resources
Performance tuning - Baseline application performance; identify and remediate bottlenecks
Security hardening - Regularly audit access controls and apply security updates

Phase 6: Govern & Manage

Purpose: Operate cloud infrastructure with security, compliance, cost discipline, and reliability.

Governance at Scale

Ongoing governance ensures cloud environment remains compliant, cost-controlled, and secure as it grows.

Core governance activities:

Activity	Frequency	Owner
Cost review	Weekly or monthly	Finance + cloud operations team
Compliance audit	Quarterly	Compliance + security team
Access review	Semi-annually	Identity and access management team
Policy effectiveness	Quarterly	Cloud governance council
Disaster recovery testing	Semi-annually	Operations team
Security posture assessment	Monthly	Security team

Cost Management

Preventing cloud cost runaway requires active ongoing management, not one-time optimization.

Cost management practices:

Budgets and alerts - Set budgets per subscription, department, or cost center; alert when spend exceeds threshold
Chargebacks - Allocate cloud costs back to business units to incentivize cost discipline
Showback reports - Provide visibility into spending by workload, environment, and team
Regular optimization - Monthly reviews of top spenders; investigate anomalies
Reserved Instances or Spot VMs - Long-term commitments or interruptible compute for cost reduction

Security and Compliance Operations

Cloud security is ongoing, not a one-time implementation.

Continuous security practices:

Access reviews - Regularly audit who has access to what resources; revoke unnecessary permissions
Threat detection - Monitor security logs for suspicious activity; investigate alerts
Patch management - Apply security updates to infrastructure and applications
Vulnerability scanning - Regularly scan for misconfigurations, missing patches, and credentials
Compliance validation - Continuously audit for compliance with regulatory requirements

Common Migration Antipatterns and How to Avoid Them

Antipattern 1: “Lift and Shift Everything”

Problem: Assuming all workloads should be rehosted as-is to Azure without assessment or planning.

Result: Many workloads run inefficiently on Azure. Self-managed databases and always-on compute generate high costs. Opportunity to modernize is lost.

Solution: Conduct thorough assessment and categorize workloads by the 5 Rs. Plan refactoring for expensive-to-operate workloads (especially databases). Start with rehosting for quick wins; modernize incrementally based on business value and team capability.

Antipattern 2: Skipping the Business Case

Problem: Beginning migration without quantifying ROI or defining business outcomes.

Result: Stakeholders have misaligned expectations. Cost overruns surprise budget owners. Migration is questioned mid-way through.

Solution: Invest time upfront to build a comprehensive business case. Include current state costs, projected cloud costs, migration costs, and productivity gains. Update the business case quarterly as actual costs emerge.

Antipattern 3: Insufficient Landing Zone Planning

Problem: Allowing teams to create their own subscriptions and network infrastructure without governance.

Result: Inconsistent security policies, naming conventions, and network architecture. Cost allocation is impossible. Compliance gaps emerge.

Solution: Deploy a pre-built landing zone template before migration begins. Establish governance policies through Azure Policy. Require all migrations to use the landing zone structure.

Antipattern 4: Underestimating Skills Gaps

Problem: Assuming existing infrastructure team can operate cloud infrastructure without training.

Result: Migrated workloads remain in VM-only patterns because team lacks skills with managed services. Cost and security benefits are not realized.

Solution: Assess skills during planning phase. Build a skills development roadmap. Designate cloud champions in each team. Require certification for key roles.

Antipattern 5: Ignoring Cost During Migration

Problem: Treating cloud cost as secondary concern; focusing only on technical migration success.

Result: Costs are 2-3x higher than projected because overprovisioning, unused resources, and expensive VM SKUs go unchecked.

Solution: Establish cost management practices from day one. Conduct cost reviews weekly or monthly. Set budgets and alerts. Right-size resources regularly.

Antipattern 6: Failing to Test Failback Plans

Problem: Assuming once migration is complete, the on-premises infrastructure can be decommissioned immediately.

Result: If post-migration issues emerge, there is no fallback plan. Extended outage results.

Solution: Keep on-premises infrastructure operational for a period after migration. Define failback criteria (e.g., if cloud workload experiences outage lasting 1+ hour, failover back to on-premises). Test failback once or twice before committing to decommissioning.

Antipattern 7: Insufficient Migration Tool Adoption

Problem: Performing manual migration planning and execution instead of leveraging Azure Migrate and automation.

Result: Migration is slow, error-prone, and expensive. Insights from assessment tools are not captured.

Solution: Deploy Azure Migrate early in planning phase. Use discovery to understand dependencies and workload characteristics. Leverage Azure Migrate’s replication and testing capabilities.

Organizational Readiness and Skills Development

Successful migration requires more than technical preparation; it requires organizational change management.

Building the Cloud Operating Model

Define how teams will work differently in cloud than on-premises.

Key differences:

Dimension	On-Premises	Cloud
Infrastructure provisioning	Weeks (order, delivery, racking)	Minutes (through API or portal)
Scaling	Manual capacity planning	Automatic based on demand
Cost model	CapEx (owned assets)	OpEx (consumption-based)
Responsibility model	Team owns entire stack	Shared responsibility (Azure owns platform, team owns application/data)
Disaster recovery	On-premises DR site or backup tapes	Geo-replication and point-in-time restore in Azure
Monitoring	Agent-based on each server	Cloud-native monitoring with full observability

Change Management

Migration is organizational change. Resistance is normal; address it thoughtfully.

Change management practices:

Executive communication - Leadership regularly communicates why migration matters and what it means for the organization
Training - Provide hands-on training for teams before they work with migrated systems
Pilot programs - Allow early adopters to experiment and build confidence before organization-wide adoption
Feedback channels - Create safe spaces for teams to raise concerns and provide feedback
Recognition - Celebrate migration milestones and recognize teams that contribute successfully

Migration Assessment Tools and Services

Azure Migrate

Azure Migrate is the primary Microsoft tool for migration planning and execution.

Assessment capabilities:

Server assessment and sizing recommendations
Dependency visualization showing application connections
Cost estimation for Azure VM SKUs
Application assessment for App Service migration readiness
Database compatibility assessment

Migration capabilities:

Agentless and agent-based VM replication
Database migration with minimal downtime
Web app migration assistance

Azure Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) Calculator

The Azure TCO Calculator helps quantify cost differences between on-premises and Azure.

Inputs:

Current on-premises infrastructure (servers, storage, networking)
Network bandwidth costs
Software licensing (especially expensive licenses like SQL Server)
Labor costs for infrastructure operations

Outputs:

Projected Azure costs for equivalent infrastructure
Cost comparison chart showing break-even timeline
Savings from operational efficiency

Migration Accelerator Program (MAP)

Microsoft’s Migration Accelerator Program provides funding, tools, and expertise for large migrations.

Benefits:

Funding to cover Azure consumption and professional services
Access to experienced migration engineers
Structured methodology and best practices
Guidance on landing zone design and governance

Governance and Compliance During Migration

Data Residency and Sovereignty

Some organizations have regulatory requirements for where data must be stored.

Considerations:

Data residency - Some regulations require data to remain within a specific country or region
Data sovereignty - Some countries require data centers to be owned/operated by local entities
Azure compliance regions - Understand which Azure regions are available in your country and which comply with specific regulations
Data transfer - Plan how data will be transferred during migration while complying with regulations

Compliance Audits and Certifications

Many organizations must demonstrate compliance with standards like SOC 2, HIPAA, or PCI-DSS.

Azure compliance position:

Azure achieves many compliance certifications out-of-the-box (SOC 2, ISO 27001, HIPAA, PCI-DSS)
Organizations are responsible for using Azure’s compliance features correctly (proper network isolation, encryption, access controls)
Azure Compliance offerings provide details on which standards each region complies with

Hybrid Governance During Migration

During migration, you operate both on-premises and Azure simultaneously. Governance must span both environments.

Hybrid governance considerations:

Identity - Extend on-premises Active Directory (Entra ID) to Azure for consistent identity
Compliance - Ensure both environments comply with security policies
Monitoring - Monitor both environments from a unified dashboard
Cost - Track costs separately by environment to understand cloud ROI

Key Takeaways

Migration is business change, not just technical change. Begin with clear business outcomes (cost reduction, agility, risk reduction). Build a business case quantifying ROI. Obtain executive sponsorship and organizational alignment.
Assessment drives migration strategy. Use Azure Migrate to understand workload characteristics, dependencies, and cloud readiness. Categorize workloads by the 5 Rs. Prioritize based on business value and technical dependencies.
The Cloud Adoption Framework provides proven methodology. Six phases from strategy through governance organize migration work. Each phase produces specific deliverables that feed into the next phase.
Landing zones are foundation, not afterthought. Deploy a pre-built landing zone before migration begins. Establish governance policies, network architecture, and RBAC structure upfront to prevent later remediation work.
Wave-based migration reduces risk and builds momentum. Organize migration into waves (POC, early adopters, main migration, late migration). Learn from early waves and apply lessons to later waves.
The 5 Rs guide workload categorization. Rehost for quick wins (70-80% of workloads). Refactor expensive-to-operate workloads (especially databases). Rearchitect for strategic value. Replace with SaaS where applicable.
Skills development is not optional. Migration requires cloud-native operational practices. Build a skills roadmap. Provide training. Designate cloud champions. Validate with certifications.
Cost management must be continuous, not one-time. Right-size resources during migration. Monitor spend weekly or monthly. Conduct regular cost reviews. Use reserved instances or spot VMs for long-term cost optimization.
Governance enables scale without chaos. Azure Policy enforces naming, tagging, network isolation, and compliance standards. Establish governance from day one; retrofitting is painful.
Post-migration optimization realizes cloud value. Rehosting is just the first step. Plan modernization to cloud-native patterns (managed databases, containers, serverless) based on business value and team capability. Continuous optimization prevents cost creep and improves performance.